


Notes

by Nasyat



Category: Die Anstalt
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkwardness, Flying Kink, Germany, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Nutcracker Referenced, Stuffed Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 08:11:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4698689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nasyat/pseuds/Nasyat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All night, the snow has been powdering the earth and the slanting hospital roof with <em>sui generis</em> crystals of fractal beauty. The first dawning rays seemed to have dulcified the celestial whirling, and the island froze on a fulgent inhale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Notes

_\- Aber viel hast du zu leiden, wenn du dich des armen mißgestalteten Nußknackers annehmen willst, da ihn der Mausekönig auf allen Wegen und Stegen verfolgt. - Doch nicht ich - du du allein kannst ihn retten, sei standhaft und treu._

_\- Nußknacker und Mausekönig, E. T. A. Hoffman [1]_

 

The paper clip slides down the edge, binding the notepad sheet, filled up in a round hand, to the medical record, and the raven doctor leans back a little to give his work a brief overlook. Deeply and soundlessly, he sighs; through the looking glass of the barred window, the brilliant blanket of pure white suffuses the room in a mellow reflection. All night, the snow has been powdering the earth and the slanting hospital roof with _sui generis_ crystals of fractal beauty. The first dawning rays seemed to have dulcified the celestial whirling, and the island froze on a fulgent inhale.

To the strains of A Ram Sam Sam, faintly wafted from behind the closed door of his office, Dr. Wood resumes turning over the crackly pages. The song, a frolicsome reiteration of nonsensical words, plays at its highest tempo and ceases; the raven hearkens to the silence for a long moment, then shuts the journal with a pop, gathers his usual paraphernalia - a notepad and a pencil - and swiftly jumps down his chair.

The corridor echoes with the intermittent sounds of an orchestra, as Dr. Wood bends his steps towards the patients lounge. His human colleague is already there, perched on one knee before the crocheted snake, who is swishing his tail in wild spirits. Another patient, Dub the turtle, is engrossed in the process of rewinding the old cassette player. He snaps the buttons intently, tearing morsels out of the sublime body of music, and the raven flips his notepad open to make an entry. The graphite tip of his pencil lingers over the blank sheet of paper, indecisive; with half an ear, he hears the turtle cheering, having finally hit the sought melody.

"It's the part where they dance in the pine forest[2]," Dub says, addressing to the purple hippo, who for once stops fiddling with his blocks and gives heed to the symphonic piece. Prompted by the stirring of velvet pile on his belly, the raven raises his head to meet an ingenuous gaze of the turtle. Dub hesitates for a split second, all threadbare cashmere and time out of mind, but, seemingly impelled by the music, approaches the raven on shuffling feet and offers his hand palm up.

"May I?.." his voice falters; the sentence hangs in the air, unfinished. Dr. Wood stares at the shaking glove, making a mental note to reduce the patient's dosage of chlorpromazine[3]. Then, barely forestalling the words of apology ready on Dub's lips, he lays his notepad aside and steps into the embrace. With the turtle holding him as if he were made out of porcelain, they begin moving to the flow of ethereal sounds.

Almost straight away, the raven treads on Dub's foot. The taller toy breaks into a good-natured smile, much to the doctor's umbrage, who misinterprets the gesture as a mockery. The pair reels in a weak imitation of waltz, while Dr. Wood glares at the turtle's patched over patched shoes in vexation over the clumsiness of another's body. Having had quite enough, he prepares to bring the dance to an end, when suddenly, the cymbals strike, and Dub, guileless, emboldened Dub, lifts him in the air. The raven's heart leaps to his throat. Panic-stricken, he lunges his small feet forward in an undignified manner, before Dub carefully puts him down. Swirling across the sunlit floor to the thunderous roar of an orchestra, the raven barely has time to recover his wits, as - dzantsch! - the cymbals strike for the second time, and again he soars to the ceiling. After that, Dr. Wood looses count, intoxicated by the vertigo and a sinking feeling in his underbelly. A persistent observer, however, could have noticed that the cymbals were struck eight times, and exactly eight times the doctor went up in a swing. As the music fades away, an emphatic snap of somebody stopping the cassette player concludes the dance. Dub draws the raven breath-hitchingly close before parting; with wistful softness, he brushes the fur out of another's taffeta beak. Dr. Wood steps back, trembling from the top of his head to the tip of his toes, and makes a hasty retreat to his office, where he would embark on a struggle to regain his bearings.

The raven tries to forget.

Skimming though the recent articles on pathopsychology, he hears a vague noise outside his chambers - what seems to be the nurse's stern call and a patter of fleeing feet, but, absorbed in the controversial thesis of a certain Presnyakov, Dr. Wood attaches no importance to this.

Later on, as the raven leaves to conduct a case conference, he notices a small piece of paper slipped under his door. He picks it up and looks the folded sheet over, reluctant to reveal its hidden contents. With an excuse of being in a hurry, Dr. Wood places it on his desk, promptly dismissing the occurrence from his mind.

That is why, when he bursts into his office and, deranged by the aversion of his esteemed colleagues, starts disposing of journals, charts and records, he sweeps the sheet into the bin along with other papers without a second thought.

***

_Ich verspreche dir…_

_Die unter gefiederten Beklommenheit;_

_Die Tränen ohne Salz;_

_Die Unbewußteschreie;_

_Das Moment am Rande eines Traumes, bis ins Unendliche gestreckt;_

_"Ausbesserung" in Fäden geschrieben._ [4]

***

He lets his regalia slip out of his wings, and a gust of wind carries the severed bird talons away into the yawning abyss. At last, the raven is where he belongs - with the grand, incandescent stars, but such eminence is no easy thing to maintain, for there is envy of others, and the icy gale threatens to blow him off the pillar. Frost-bound, Leader Wood leaps down his pedestal to find his turtle follower lying prone with an aghast, yet determined expression; poor thing, too shallow to comprehend the honour he was deigned with. The raven passes him by nonchalantly and stops at the bed's end. He hears a sigh, merged with the crepitation of icy crust breaking, then the shuffling of unsteady feet, and Dub presses himself against the high-minded luminary in a selfless attempt to give warmth. Leader Wood allows this willfulness: he is freezing, after all. A hint of a smile graces his shining beak...

And then an unknown force throws him off, rending the air with a loud bang. He somersaults and collapses on his stomach, shattering the thin layer of ice that covers the bedsheets.

Being tugged up by the firm hands ("Are you unhurt? Please, Wood, tell me you're unhurt!), the raven starts to remember.

***

He is just a toy.

***

_A question. No, an offer._

_Yes. Of course I do._

_Another's hands clasped at his sides._

_Gaining seed._

**_O, mein Gott, Dub!_ **

_A maelstrom of emotions: shame, confusion, stunning delight, lo-_ [5]

***

Wood latches his suitcase and wistfully smoothes his wings over its textured surface. It is a nice suitcase - severe, roomy, made of brown leather, fragrant with newness and high quality. But what is the use of it now? He no longer manages the papers to put into its padded cavity; the Claws, he does not even want to think about them. And moreover, what is the use of Wood himself? An odd figure: his work is gone, delusions - scattered to the four winds. The empty luggage before his feet seems to be the epitome of his life, eviscerated of everything that was his own. "Half success, half failure"?[6] No, Wood thinks, a failure to its fullest. He chuckles.

From the corner of his eye, he espies movement. The raven turns to the open door, and his pulse goes up and into his head.

"Dub," he says, flatly. The turtle shifts from one foot to another at the threshold. Stricken by the red edemata of his eyes, Wood swiftly looks away, ignoring how sick his own heart has become at the notion of his former patient crying.

"Are you leaving?" asks Dub, and the raven fixes his gaze on the suitcase.

"Yes," he replies in a thick voice. Wood expects further questions, like "When?", and "Where?", but - silence.

He steals a glance to catch the back of Dub's shell, slowly retiring. It is green now, Wood realizes with a start, and then his attention is drawn to the piece of paper that is crumpled in the turtle's left glove. Thin, clumsily folded.

Intended to be placed under the door of his office.

The raven waits for Dub to pass out of sight; then, ignited by the spark of recollection, he darts to the waste bin. It is still crammed with medical data: the havoc he has made prevented anyone from restoring the documents. Wood digs into the papers, ingulfed in a feverish search. Nothing! He overturns the bin in an act of despair, and its contents spill heavily on the floor. The raven scatters the white mass in a crouch, but to no avail.

Just as he starts to think that the happening has been a mere figment of his psychosis ridden mind, the folded sheet finally reveals itself. Wood snatches the precious scrap, driven by the irrational fear of it disappearing into thin air, and opens it with shaking wings. It does not take him long to recognise the hand - bold and running, he remembers it from the time he was filling in Dub's medical record and asked the turtle to spell "Ailesbury Road" for him.

 [7]

The raven flops on his bottom, running eyes over the scrawled note over and over again. Like the last straw to break the camel's back, it annihilates the wall, rickety as it is, around Wood's heart, and the toy clasps the piece of paper to his palpitating chest, crushed by the avalanche of so desperately suppressed, overwhelming, unaccountable

_Love_

that feels like an explosion of hearts over his head. He draws a faltering breath, waits for the first surge of elation to abate; then, with an aloof grin, the raven rises to his feet and waddles out of his office as fast as he can. Love interweaves with every fibre of his body; he clings to it, adheres to this newfound, resolving purpose. Wood flies up the stairs, rapturously flapping his wings, and bursts into the the ward with a mist before his eyes and an utterance of the turtle's name on his lips, but

Dub  
       is not  
                 there.

The lovesick raven stops, unable to comprehend the situation. In unbelief, he looks under the bed.

Dub is not there.

Wood tears to the patients lounge, barely managing to move his small feet, dum-dum heart and tinnitus in his head. The toy raven is met with two pairs of similarly toy eyes, that seem to be telling him:

**_DUB IS NOT THERE_ **

He runs to the metallic door and hammers on it, all paroles forgotten. The door grinds open, and he falls in flat. The nurse at the reception desk finishes painting her pinky and carefully blows on it in order to dry the nail polish. Without vouchsafing to face him, she answers the question that pulsates on his mind like a splitting migraine (she must have been monitoring him by means of the cameras, Wood realizes):

" _Dub ist entlassen_ [8]." Said indifferently, with a hint of solemnity, it sounds like a death sentence. His heart implodes with a string-snapping shudder, leaving a minuscule black hole behind. Nevertheless, the raven stands up and limps to the exit, not out of hope, but more out of despair.

Blinded by the frosty whiteness, he blinks his gaze clear, lacrimation whether reflexive, or psychic. When Wood is able see again, he feels alleviated from an onerous burden, because, floundering in the snow, making small, leaden steps, Dub - his Dub - is finally there. The turtle turns, hearing the door creak, and his face becomes rigid for a moment, before sagging in fatigued relief. Slowly, Wood makes his way towards the other toy, wading through the flocculent snow. He marks, with regret, that he has lost his note in a rush, and Dub must have gotten rid of his along the way. The raven meets another's expectant eyes, pupils shrivelled and irises limpid from the abundance of reflected light, and all he can do is mumble:

" _Ich freue mich_ … I am glad to have found you."

The sympathy of Dub's silence offers unostentatious comfort.

"Well, it wasn't that hard, was it?" he says, very softly. "I wouldn't know how to escape from this wretched island anyway, and at such speed, or more like the lack of it..."

Hit with a sudden idea, Wood clasps the turtle's hand between his wings, much to the latter's amusement.

"I leave for Cuxhaven tomorrow, _bei Fähre_ [9]," the toy raven jabbers, "at three in the afternoon. Do you wish to _mich begleiten_ , ah, do you wish to accompany me?"

Dub's expression grows mellow.

"Are you going to put me in your suitcase?" he asks in a deliberately serious tone. A tender upcurve of his lips escapes Wood's notice, and the raven rouses himself.

" _Was?_   No, of course not! We will buy you a ticket, and..." But the turtle interrupts him.

"I mean, in a metaphorical sense." And upon seeing a confused goggle on Wood's face, he bursts out laughing, so loud, it could be considered hysterical. The surge of frenzy ceases as abruptly as it began, and Dub drops his eyes, pressing the raven's wing in his glove.

"I wouldn't mind, either way," he adds quietly, sending shivers down Wood's spine.

They walk along the snowbound shore, side by side. The wind is cold, and the raven undoes his hood to wrap it around Dub's shoulders. The turtle accepts the sentiment with a smile.

"I belive our dance - do you remember it? - was very… how do I put it… symbolic, perhaps?" he says, thoughtfully. The other toy gives him a look of inquiry, and Dub elaborates. "The music we were dancing to, it's from "The Nutcracker". You know, the ballet?"

Wood shakes his head.

"Have not seen it."

"Have you read the original story, then? It's by a German writer."

The raven watches the foamy crests of the wild waves rise, fall, and retreat from the coast in Sisyphean toil.

" _Symbolisch_ , you say? _Meiner Meinung_ _ist_   I am more of the Mouse King than a charming prince."

Two strong hands swing him about, and he fixates on Dub's face, a wide grin plastered across it, hazel eyes burning like two fiery embers.

"You don't understand," whispers the turtle, and Wood revels in his warm touch, "your malady is the Mouse King." And with that, Dub drags them both to the snowy ground.

Lying there, recalling the echoes of the enchanting melody and a sinkage underneath his heart, Wood feels another's mouth press to the corner of his beak, and he soars to the sky - redeeming, infinite, - breathing in its crystalline azure.

_Ah_

_Endlich in Freiheit_ [10]

**Author's Note:**

> [1] "But you will have to suffer much if you are to look after Nutcracker, for the Mouse King will pursue him in every land across every border. I cannot help him - only you can do that. Be faithful and strong." The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, E. T. A. Hoffman
> 
> [2] Dub talks about "A Pine Forest in Winter" scene from "The Nutcracker".
> 
> [3] I assume that Dub's "incessant hoppings" are induced by acute psychosis. 
> 
> [4] I promise you…  
> The down feathered trepidation;  
> Tears without salt;  
> Shrieks of the unconscious mind;  
> The moment on the brink of a dream, stretched to infinity;  
> "Mending" spelled in threads.
> 
> The German translation may contain mistakes. If that's indeed the case, I apologise and humbly hope that you will correct me.
> 
> [5] This is not what you think. For further clarifications, see ["Gloves"](http://groccio.tumblr.com/post/105432274961/fandom-die-anstalt-psychiatrie-f%C3%BCr-misshandelte).
> 
> [6] "Cut the thread, separate a man from that which is rightfully his own, characteristic of him, and you have a peculiar figure, half success, half failure, much as a spider without its web, which will never be its whole self again until all its dignities and emoluments are restored." The Financier, Theodore Dreiser.
> 
> [7] "It was a pleasure and a privilege". "Lettergo" by Adorable served as an inspiration for this stoy.
> 
> [8] Dub has been discharged. 
> 
> [9] by ferry
> 
> [10] Finally in freedom


End file.
